


When Sparks Fly

by pelmandna



Category: Mother 1 | EarthBound Zero | EarthBound Beginnings
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Crushes, First Kiss, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Not Beta Read, lloyd has an anxiety attack but he ends up ok in the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:28:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29849820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pelmandna/pseuds/pelmandna
Summary: Ninten has an experiment that he wants to enact, and he needs Lloyd's help to do it.
Relationships: Lloyd/Ninten (Mother 1)
Kudos: 4





	When Sparks Fly

**Author's Note:**

> GWAHHHH i'm not an experienced writer in any regard please be patient with me  
> i wrote this in 50 mins after getting encouragement from my friend to write it out as a fic and i wanted to share it because i feel like if i share my fics i will write more of them skjdfhsjdhf..  
> lloydten is like the best mother ship ever besides maybe jefftony so like fight me

It had been a long day for the both of them. A couple hundred dollars later- which was remarkably cheap, from what Lloyd had heard, it tended to cost several hundred dollars to book a hotel room, but maybe he'd only heard of the expensive ones, he didn't know- and the two adventurers were flopping down on freshly made hotel beds, the exhaustion seeping out of their muscles as they relaxed into the cushiony mattresses beneath them. The sun hadn't yet set, but both boys knew that they were just too tired to continue on at the rate they were going, and had already decided to call it a night.

After a brief rest, Ninten took the opportunity to pop into the shower, which both of them agreed he very much needed; in the meantime, Lloyd had taken his free time to begin poring over his schoolbooks. Despite being on a potentially fatal adventure in which he was destined to save the world from some inexplicable alien force dead-set on taking it over, he still felt the same anxiety as he always had over falling behind academically, and so, even though his limbs felt like jelly and his head was pounding, he read on, filling out sections of math work and writing down observations about the books his class had been assigned to write reports on. As he worked on, he didn't even notice that Ninten had stepped out of the shower and was now peering over his shoulder, watching quietly as Lloyd shuffled through all of the work he had in front of him.

As he was setting the last book aside, Ninten took the opportunity to pipe up. "Hey, Lloyd?" Lloyd yelped in response, jolting at the sudden break in the silence he had settled into. After taking a moment to settle down his pounding heart, he responded with a shaky,  
"Y-yeah? What's up?"

"I uhh, I have a, um, experiment, that I wan'ed yer help with." Ninten responded, his rural accent poking through more than usual. Lloyd had gotten used to the fact that that happened when Ninten was nervous, or just thinking really hard about what he wanted to say; Ninten also happened to have a nervous stutter, Lloyd noticed, that came through via frequent lulls and interruptions in his sentences.

"Uhh... sure, yeah, I can help. What did you need?" Lloyd adjusted his glasses pensively, turning in the desk chair to fully face Ninten. He took note of the fact that his body language was much more reserved than usual; he had his arms drawn in, rather than swinging at his sides or vaguely flapping in front of his chest, and he wasn't rocking on his heels as much as he usually did. This made Lloyd curious; what was it about this "experiment" that had Ninten so nervous?

"Well, er... uhh... the adults 'round me have always said that when I, uhh, kissed a girl, that, uhh, 'sparks will fly', or sum'n. And I can't say I've ever kissed a girl before..." He looked towards the floor with a slight flush to his cheeks, bringing one hand to the back of his neck. "...or anyone else, really. Only person I've ever given kisses to was my mama, heheh..." After a bit of awkward, strained silence, he shook himself around a little before looking back up at Lloyd, bravado filling his expression. "So, I was wond'rin', if sparks are 'sposed'ta fly when I kiss a girl, would it be the same if I kissed a boy? And, uh... I've kinda got one right here, y'know? So..."

Lloyd took a moment to process everything that Ninten had said. He wasn't sure he got it at first. Ninten said that the adults around him said that "sparks would fly" if he kissed a girl, but he'd never kissed one before, and wanted to know if the same would happen with a boy? ...and that there was a... a boy... right... in front of...

_Oh dear._

_Oh. Dear._

At the realization of what Ninten meant, Lloyd's face flushed a deep red, and he brought a hand to his mouth in shock. Surely he was joking, right? This had to be some sort of cruel joke. Nobody would ever want to kiss him, he was a weakling, a coward, he hid in the _trash_ for Pete's sake- but wait, Ninten would never do that would he? Ninten isn't a cruel guy! He was Lloyd's friend, his _only_ friend, he didn't have the capacity to be that cruel, but there wasn't any alternative, unless-

Unless Ninten _knew_ about Lloyd's crush?

_Oh god, there was a chance he knew about Lloyd's crush._

As he teetered on the edge of a downward spiral, Lloyd felt a hand on his shoulder, as well as a soft tingling feeling washing over him. He refocused his eyes- he hadn't even realized his vision went blurry, when did that happen?- and looked up to see Ninten's face staring back at him with a mixture of comfort and worry.

_Right. This was Ninten he was thinking of. He wasn't capable of that type of cruelty. He cares too much._

"Are you alright? If, if y'don't wanna, we don't gotta, I just, I figured I might as well, uh... ask..." He sounded genuinely apologetic for how he had made Lloyd feel, and it hurt Lloyd even worse. He felt as though he had just hurt Ninten's feelings. He swore he could hear it somewhere in there, see it somewhere on his face.

"I- I never. S-said... that," Lloyd heard himself mutter, despite himself. "I just... can't... think of anybody wanting to... do that... to. Me." He gave a slight chuckle that came out sounding more like a scoff. "I mean, I-I'm just, a weakling, y'know? It's hard to think that... anybody would want to... um." He brought a fist to his mouth, stifling a fake cough. He was just making things worse, wasn't he? Ninten probably thought Lloyd was making a fool of himself.

But of course, he wasn't. "Don't say that, Lloyd! Yer not a weakling, as much as anybody wants you to think you are." Ninten brought a hand to Lloyd's cheek, tilting his face up so that their eyes met. Lloyd tried to ignore how much it made his face burn. "And I _do_ wanna do this with you. No jokes about it. I promise."

Lloyd gave a thick swallow. This was really happening, wasn't it? He was about to kiss Ninten. His best friend. His only friend. The boy who probably saved his life. _The boy who he had a super massive crush on._ Through all his anxiety and excitement, Lloyd managed to mutter out a single word, and get out a single nod.

"...okay."

And just like that, their lips met.

Lloyd didn't know what he was expecting. It was warm, it was a little wet, and oh boy, was his heart racing from it. He could feel Ninten's hand on his cheek, his soft, slow exhaling against his skin, the warmth of his skin from how close their faces were, and it was all so much. If there were any way for sparks to be flying, this was it. It felt both like a million years and a single millisecond before Ninten drew back, too short for Lloyd either way, and it wasn't until he didn't have Ninten's lips to be absorbed in that Lloyd realized he was shaking.

"...was that good for ya?" Ninten asked in a soft voice, as if he were scared of driving Lloyd away. Subconsciously, Lloyd licked his lips a little, feeling that they were too dry in that moment. Not occupied enough. After a little deliberation, he responded,

"Y-you know... in um, in a scientific experiment, it's um... it's often customary to have, u-um, at least th-three trials. That way, you c-can, you know, r-really uh, be sure that your results are accurate." He looked up at Ninten, who was looking back at him with an unreadable expression. Then, with a soft smile, he said,  
"Guess we gotta get those other two trials in, then."

He brought Lloyd in close to himself as their lips met again, and Lloyd gripped at Ninten's shirt a little, eager to make it all count and scared to lose the opportunity at the same time. This was what he'd wanted so badly until now; he'd be darned if he lost this chance, lost the chance to be so close to the person he cared so much about, lost this chance to express the love he'd had building inside himself for this long, lost this chance to get the affection he'd been so desperately lacking in. It were as if he were filled with this bright, buzzing energy, and his body could only get it out by channeling it through his lips, as though their contact were like that of a wire.

The third kiss chained in so smoothly with the second that they hardly had time to breathe between, anxious energy fueling the experience, and it was only when they both drew back to take a proper breath that they realized that sparks were literally flying. Ninten's body was fizzing with psychic energy, the hairs on his arms standing on end and small motes of light popping in the air like clusters of bubbles. It was captivating, all of the different colors coming together to form a rainbow of light sparking its way around them, and as they both watched it simmer down, a laugh bubbled up from inside of Ninten's chest.

"Would'ja look'it that! Sparks really _did_ fly, huh!"

Lloyd couldn't help but smile at that. Tenderly, he took Ninten's hand in his own, a soft blush making its way across his cheeks, and he knew at that moment that things were different between them, now.

"Yeah. I suppose they did."

**Author's Note:**

> hi i adore u for getting thru this thank u so so much for reading <3 if u have any comments or criticism pls let me know, if its the latter i might cry (/hyp) but i will still accept it


End file.
